Odell Beckham to Eli Apple: 'You weren't, and I wasn't, good enough this year'

There are few active NFL players who have been put in the position of having to defend their personality as often as Odell Beckham Jr. The star wide receiver for the New York Giants has spent the last four years battling an image crisis spurred on by what a lot of people have deemed as immature and/or distracting behavior.

However he’s also one of the most talented players in the league, and as he gets older, he’s learning how to cultivate a better relationship with his teammates by holding himself accountable.

Meanwhile, things have been headed in an opposite direction for wayward cornerback, Eli Apple, who had been performing poorly on a bad Giants team and isolating himself from his teammates and the coaching staff to such a degree that he was suspended for the final game of the season.

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Apple hasn’t handled the backlash well, and on Sunday, he doubled-down on his “haters gonna hate” approach to his career problems by ranting on Twitter. He also made the mistake of engaging with fans who criticized said tweets, trading barbs and outright antagonizing people who responded to him.

I’d rather be hated than loved cause the love was always fake keep that hate coming tho y’all gonna see the real me this yr 🤐😈

If anyone can recognize someone who just isn’t seeing the big picture, it’s Beckham. So he stepped in to remind Apple that playing the troll game on Twitter is a lost cause, and that neither one of them was up to snuff in 2017.

Brooooo I kno it feels good to tell these ppl off , trust me I would love nothin more than to do the same. But don’t waste ur time on these ppl, half the ppl don’t even have real accounts. Stop bro, ur better than that. U weren’t… and I wasn’t… good enough this year.

Beckham’s playing the role of the supportive friend, pulling the “you’re better than this” card as a nice way of saying that he needs to grow up. He also attempts to relate to Apple by reminding him that they all need to be better than what they were in 2017, although OBJ’s standards are a lot higher than Apple’s will ever be.

Beckham had put together three consecutive seasons of 1,300+ yards and 10 or more TD receptions before suffering a season-ending injury after playing just four games. He doesn’t have much to make up for in terms of his production on the field, but it’s encouraging to see him try to relate to another young player who is clearly struggling with fame and the ups and downs of life in the NFL.